The Hanoi Experience

We pulled in to Hanoi station about an hour late that morning, or maybe it was right on time, I was not sure at this point. I got off the train and said goodbye to Nguyen, thanking him for this amazing experience. With his email in my hand I knew I would be in touch with him in the future.

I really enjoyed the Sunway hotel and decided to return there, plus I still had the business card they hand out at the front desk with their address and map on the back in Vietnamese, so it was the easiest choice as all I had to do was hand it to a cab driver. It’s a great idea when you can’t speak the language, at least you can give people this card and they can point you in the right direction. We took off towards the hotel and this cab was thumping with some kind of Vietnamese techno music, awesome around 06:00 in the morning.

I got to the hotel and got a room. Once I got to my room I tossed my pack down and then jumped in the shower. This was the best shower ever, warm water included. I made good use of the shampoo and soap provided by the hotel. And it was great to dry off with a nice clean fluffy towel. I then made good use of the complementary toothbrush kit they provided, knowing that “drinkable water” came out of the faucet. I went to my pack and today was my lucky day, I still had one clean pair of boxers. So after today I was going to have to re-stock, with that in mind I picked out a few choice items and placed them in the laundry bag to have the hotel clean, then took a nap.

I woke up a few hours later and grabbed some lunch. I then headed out for one last trip around Hanoi. As you walk around people will come up to you about every 10 steps and say “Motorbike?”, meaning can they give you a ride someplace for money. These are just regular citizens, not licensed, not working for anyone, just people who have a motorbike and time on their hands. They all look and dress different, representing all kinds of motorbikes from thousand year old things that spew exhaust as they barely limp down the street to fairly new ones that can zip in and out of traffic before the person even realizes you just cut them off. The only problem here is that the only English they know is “Motorbike”, so if you want to actually go someplace you better have a map in hand, and you better agree on a price before you hop on so there are no “issues” if you are lucky enough to safely arrive at your destination.

It was my last day in Hanoi so I decided to jump on the back of one of these, plus it helps to have an IQ in the low 80s. It took some work but I was able to negotiate a price and path that we both agreed on, so I jumped on and pulled out my video camera. Traffic is scary in Hanoi and even scarier when viewed from the back of a motorbike. I’ll let my video tell the full story, but the short version, I thought I was going to die twice, came within two inches of hitting something about a thousand times, and had one minor “bump” in which neither of us crashed or fell over, so I guess you could say it was a safe and successful trip, and all while wearing sandals. The only problem was that I now stunk of exhaust.


Once back at the hotel I decided to calm my nerves with a few last Vietnamese beers, plus it was great to chat with my bartender friend again, he even scored me two free beers for the conversation as he wanted to hear as much about American and my life as I wanted to learn about his.

I headed up to bed and it was great to sleep on an actual mattress again, in fact the last time I did was the last time I was at this hotel on my first night in Hanoi.


VIDEO: Hanoi by Motorbike